Sonography of the pancreas was evaluated quantitatively in 94 normal subjects. The grey-scale values in the head and body of the pancreas were measured and compared with those of retroperitoneal fat. The echogenicity of the pancreas and the contrast between pancreas and fat were correlated with the age and weight of the subjects. Semi-quantitative studies revealed a positive correlation between echogenicity and age (r = 0.505); this can be confirmed to a high degree of statistical significance by quantitative analysis of pancreatic grey-scale values (r = 0.55 for the head and 0.71 for the body). Further improved correlation with age is obtained by computing the sonographic contrast between the pancreas and the retroperitoneal fat (r = 0.66 for the head and 0.77 for the body of the pancreas). It is concluded that determination of the grey-scale value can provide additional information particularly if one uses retroperitoneal fat as a reference tissue.
The reproducibility of sonographic measurements was checked using 255 measurements on 57 intra-abdominal masses. It was shown that differences of measurements carried out independently by two observers increased in a linear manner with tumour diameter. Relative differences in measurement averaged 10%, but in 5% of cases they reached 30%. Somewhat better results were obtained with small tumours and for measurements lying strictly in the axis of the body. The significance of these findings in clinical practice, particularly for tumour follow-up, is discussed.
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